st of this single die. It was useless to say to
himself that he could go into the council a week later with a modified
ordinance or could wait until the storm had died out. He refused
himself these consolations. Already he had battled so long and so
vigorously, by every resource and subtlety which his mind had been able
to devise. All week long on divers occasions he had stood in the
council-chamber where the committee had been conducting its hearings.
Small comfort to know that by suits, injunctions, appeals, and writs to
intervene he could tie up this transit situation and leave it for years
and years the prey of lawyers, the despair of the city, a hopeless
muddle which would not be unraveled until he and his enemies should
long be dead. This contest had been so long in the brewing, he had
gone about it with such care years before. And now the enemy had been
heartened by a great victory. His aldermen, powerful, hungry, fighting
men all--like those picked soldiers of the ancient Roman
emperors--ruthless, conscienceless, as desperate as himself, had in
their last redoubt of personal privilege fallen, weakened, yielded.
How could he hearten them to another struggle--how face the blazing
wrath of a mighty populace that had once learned how to win? Others
might enter here--Haeckelheimer, Fishel, any one of a half-dozen
Eastern giants--and smooth out the ruffled surface of the angry sea
that he had blown to fury. But as for him, he was tired, sick of
Chicago, sick of this interminable contest. Only recently he had
promised himself that if he were to turn this great trick he would
never again attempt anything so desperate or requiring so much effort.
He would not need to. The size of his fortune made it of little worth.
Besides, in spite of his tremendous vigor, he was getting on.

Since he had alienated Aileen he was quite alone, out of touch with any
one identified with the earlier years of his life. His all-desired
Berenice still evaded him. True, she had shown lately a kind of
warming sympathy; but what was it? Gracious tolerance, perhaps--a sense
of obligation? Certainly little more, he felt. He looked into the
future, deciding heavily that he must fight on, whatever happened, and
then--

While he sat thus drearily pondering, answering a telephone call now
and then, the door-bell rang and the servant brought a card which he
said had been presented by a young woman who declared that it would
bring immediate